


Once Upon an Island

by Disgaybled_Fabled_Balladeer



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Inspired by Wonder Woman (2017)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 04:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disgaybled_Fabled_Balladeer/pseuds/Disgaybled_Fabled_Balladeer
Summary: Diana of Themyscira has orders of Hippolyta to travel to Greece and retrieve the Bringer of Twilight and her mothers back to the island. Watch this beautiful little family settle in safety - and grow in number. Yes, folks, another baby on the way. Pure, beautiful fluff.





	Once Upon an Island

**Author's Note:**

> A series of one shots - sometimes a family is an Amazon Queen, a Warrior Princess, their divine daughter, her demigod godmother, and the entire island of Themyscira. Any requests? Gimme a shout!

****The ride for Thrace trudged on beneath the setting sun, and they were still a couple days off. Between interruptions of warlords and vengeful gods, Xena and Gabrielle cherished their still moments. The new mothers were exhausted, almost slumping forward on their horses.

Xena couldn’t help glancing over, watching their baby tucked against her wife in the sling. Eve had developed a habit of nestling against their chests, drooling softly against her tiny fist. She’d gotten Xena’s dark hair and, from the brief glimpses they’d gotten, Gabrielle’s eyes.

Despite her fatigue, the bard’s arm remained securely around her daughter, nestled between her belly and the saddle pommel. Xena adjusted herself against her own, trying not to wince at the pressure. One day, she hoped, she would give birth in sane conditions. Argo seemed to know she was tender, more light on her hooves than usual, taking extra care in navigating obstacles.

They had descended into silence hours ago, eagle eyed and soft for threats, but a certain tiny someone it seemed had also gotten her mother’s cry. Gabrielle felt Eve begin to squirm against her belly before whimpering and letting out little wails, pawing at her chest.

She held her daughter close and kissed her head. “Xena, I think someone’s hungry.”

Xena jolted a little, rubbing her eyes. “She’s not the only one. Come on, pull over past that creek edge. We can make camp for the night.”

Dismounting, they left the horses to graze, knowing they wouldn’t stray, while Gabrielle cuddled and rocked Eve. Xena threw her coat down and settled against a tree, sighing and still tender from birth, and undid her breast plate. Passing the baby down, Eve squalled softly before settling against her mother’s chest.

Blessed silence, and both women breathed out.

For several moments, Gabrielle stood and beheld her little family, watching Eve latch her tiny fist around her Xena’s finger.

“She certainly got your strength,” Xena mused. “This girl’s got a grip- Honey, what’s wrong?”

Gabrielle shook her head, wiping her eyes. “Nothing, nothing – really. Just…my girls. My family. I...I never dreamed it would be so beautiful.”

Xena silently opened her spare arm and invited her in. The wives settled together, Gabrielle stroking her baby’s head as she suckled, wiping the little dribble and milk trail off her chin.

“She’s so...” Gabrielle, bard and poet, was speechless.

“I know,” Xena agreed tiredly as she leaned her head against Gabrielle. For a time, they remained in the moment, the little family slumped against each other.

“Can you set up camp and I’ll clean up Eve?” Xena asked when the baby was done.

Stroking her wife’s cheek, Gabrielle kissed her tenderly. “I’ll do patrol at the same time to check the area. The gods-”

“Hey, no. They’ve been still for a few days. Look, I know we can’t get complacent but we need to rest.”

Gabrielle nodded, and kissed her temple. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Eve squawked.

“And you, of course,” Gabrielle insisted, showering tiny kisses on her daughter’s head.

And that was that.

Gabrielle went about collecting firewood and starting a fire while Xena bathed and changed Eve. By dusk a fire was was crackling, bed rolls splayed beside it. A bucket of water was heated and used to wash the mothers, a stew bubbling over the fire.

“Xena, we need to restock supplies in Thrace before moving north,” Gabrielle reminded her as she spooned stew into a bowl and handed it over. Eve slept peacefully in their fur blankets beside them, fist in her mouth.

“Your tribe is about a week’s ride from there, we can get enough in Thrace to make it. It’ll be-”

A twig snapped.

Sais shot from Gabrielle’s boots as she stood in front of Xena who grabbed Eve gently and held her close.

“I can hear you,” Gabrielle warned. “Show yourself.”

A woman stepped from the shadows. She crossed her arms high above her head – an Amazon?

No. So much more.

“My name is Diana,” the woman stated.

* * *

 

A cloak draped the stranger’s shoulders, concealing gods knew what, and so Gabrielle’s sais remained raised. Her grip tightened until her fists turned white. Nothing – _nothing –_ risked her wife and daughter.

“Drop your weapons,” the bard ordered – so dominant that if their baby weren’t at risk Xena would be mentally undressing her wife and watching her flex.

Instead she rose slowly to her feet, the baby hidden in the sling and shielded by chakram. Following Eve’s coo, the stranger’s eye flicked to Xena’s chest, watching the wiggling bundle, and her jaw dropped.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gabrielle growled, poised to strike. “One step forward and I slit you from navel to nose.”

“My name is Diana,” she said again, presenting her unfamiliar accent. “I mean no harm.”

“Heard that one before,” the bard challenged coldly.

Diana met her eyes without flinching. “I will remove my cloak. There’s a sword at my back, a lasso at my right hip, and a knife in my left boot. I’ll drop all of them, turn around – slowly – and if you wish you may pat me down. I have already established I’m Amazonian.”

“You’ve established nothing,” Xena pointed out, feeling ridiculous as she hid behind her vertically-challenged wife but justified by the invaluable bundle in her arms, “anyone can fake an Amazon signal.”

As promised, the woman reached up, undid the clasp of her cloak and let it fall. Xena’s arm tightened around Eve.

“Gabrielle,” she breathed.

The amour was foreign, like nothing found in Greece. The woman kept her eyes fixed on the bard as she unsheathed her sword and tossed it to the side, then the lasso, and finally the knife.

“Four steps back,” Gabrielle ordered, and the woman complied.

Once out of range, the blonde kicked the weapons back toward Xena, and approached. “I’m going to check you over. You move an inch and my sai goes through your windpipe. Arms out.”

To her credit, Diana remained still. With a sai pressed to the intruder’s pulse, Gabrielle slid her hands over the strange armour, checking every crevice for weapons, even through the long dark hair spilling down her back.

“She’s clean,” Gabrielle stated finally, stepping back. “Start talking.”

“My name is Diana,” she stated a third time and, to the mothers’ surprise, sunk down onto one knee, kneeling before the bard. “My mother, Hippolyta, sends her regards, Queen Gabrielle, as do I.”

Silence settled over the camp.

The wives exchanged a look.

“You wanna run that by us one more time?” Xena asked.

“I am Diana, princess of Themyscira,” the woman explained. “We’re a small island a few day’s sail from Greece. My mother is Hippolyta. She traded goods with Queen Melosa before your rule, your highness. We were wounded greatly to hear of her passing.”

“How can we trust you?” Xena asked, sheathing her chakram but leaving a hand on it.

“Pick up my dagger. It’s forged with my family crest in the handle.”

Xena stepped down on one side, jolting it up and catching it mid air. Keeping it away from Eve’s curious hands, she flipped it over and examined it. The intricate markings were carved deep below the hilt, depicting the Amazonian royal mark.

One eyebrow twitched. “Seems legit.”

Diana smiled up at the queen. “May I rise?”

Gabrielle thought about it carefully before somewhat grudgingly sheathing one sai. The other flicked in a ‘stand’ motion. “The other stays out, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

The woman rose, brushing the dirt off her knees and shrugged back into her cloak. “My weapons?”

“You’ll need to earn those,” Xena told her.

“Assuming you’re telling the truth,” Gabrielle began, “why are you here?”

The woman’s eyes fully settled on the whimpering bundle reaching for Gabrielle. “For the Bringer of Twilight,” Diana breathed, mesmerised, “for all of you.”

“Get in line,” Gabrielle huffed as she took Eve and bounced her gently – who immediately stuffed her mother’s necklace in her mouth.

Xena eyed the stranger carefully. Her eyes had filled with tears when she first saw Eve, which now threatened to spill over.

“No, no. Nothing like that. My mother offers you sanctuary on Themyscira.”

Xena stepped closer to her wife and daughter. Her instincts told her to soften, but not completely. “You keep staring at my baby like that and you may lose an eye.”

Diana almost jolted out of a trance, wiping her eyes on her wrist. “I’m sorry, just...by the gods...she’s perfect.” She raised both hands tenderly. “I...may I?”

“No.”

Xena’s elbowed her wife a fraction. “Gabrielle. We’re here. She’s safe with us.”

Gabrielles arms flexed slightly around her daughter, resting her cheek against her tiny head. “You can’t hold her...but you can say hello. Supervised. No weapons. We remain armed. And you wash your hands first.”

Diana did as ordered, washing her hands thoroughly in the bucket of hot water. Xena kept a close hand on her sword as the Amazon approached Eve.

The baby studied this New Person with interest before shrieking joyfully, kicking her chubby legs and reaching for Diana’s hair. This stranger, this tall, curious stranger, promptly began to cry, tears spilling unashamed down her face.

“Oh, gods...she’s just…she’s…” She stroked Eve’s squishy cheeks as tiny hands pulled (what must have been painfully) at her hair. “You two made her? You should be so proud.”

Xena and Gabrielle looked at one another, at the joy on their daughter’s face, the weeping stranger, and muscles relaxed. This woman meant Eve no harm.

“We are,” Gabrielle sighed, kissing her baby’s head.

“Who’s a tiny slayer of gods?” Diana cooed as she poked the little belly. “You are! You are! She’s everything I imagined and more. I never dreamed baby’s could be so tiny.”

“You’ve never seen a baby before?” Xena asked.

“We have no babies on Themyscira. I was the last one, born of clay.”

To an outsider, this sentence would have raised a few questions. Xena eased herself back down against the tree, taking Eve back from her wife. She winced a little. “Next time we do that,” she told her wife.

The bard had to smile. “Xena, I love you, but with your artistic skills, if you craft our next child out of clay, they’ll come out looking like something from Tartarus.”

A little glare was shot across the campfire. “How dare you? I have many skills. Fine – next time, you carry.”

Diana leaned town, tickling Eve’s belly as the baby clung to her wrist cuffs. “My mother says you don’t have to join us.”

“Hmm?” Xena was busy blowing raspberries on her daughter’s cheek.

“You have no obligation to decide immediately,” the Amazon explained, “if you wish to return with me to Themyscira, but she does ask that I guard the queen and princess until you decide-” She caught herself. “-if that’s acceptable, your highness.”

Xena snorted.

Gabrielle rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Diana, ‘Gabrielle’ is fine.”

“Gabrielle,” she repeated.

The queen and the grown princess settled in by the campfire, taking turns to fuss over the baby until she had to eat again.

“This island of yours,” Xena inquired as she freed herself from her dress and let Eve latch on, “why haven’t I heard of it?”

Diana raised her misty eyes from Eve to Xena. “You don’t have the kindest origins with the Amazons, for one thing,” she admitted.

“Honest, I like that.”

“But our island is hidden.”

“Hidden how?" Gabrielle asked.


End file.
